This story from The Republican’s archive is part of our look back at Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s years in Massachusetts politics: as Senate candidate, gubernatorial candidate and governor. It was published on May 7, 2004.

By The Associated Press

BOSTON – Gov. W. Mitt Romney unveiled a proposal yesterday that aims to reduce production of greenhouse gases in an effort to meet regional emissions goals set in 2001 by New England's governors and eastern Canadian premiers.

Romney's plan calls for the state's transportation planning and funding decisions to include an analysis of the project's greenhouse gas emissions. It would also give tax breaks to owners of hybrid cars, and the right to use care-pool lanes even without passengers.

The Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan features about 70 policy initiatives, including proposed laws, incentive programs and regulatory changes. While it mandates that large industries report their carbon dioxide emissions, as power plants now do, most of its features are voluntary or imposed on the state and other public entities.

The administration did not provide an estimate of how much the plan would cost, or how much its measures will reduce emissions.

The governors and Canadian premiers set a goal of reducing greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2010, and reducing them a further 10 percent by 2020.

The administration had planned to release the report at an Earth Day event April 24, but delayed the report for nearly two weeks for review by the governor, state agencies and business and environmental groups.

Environmental activists, many of whom have been pushing the administration to take action, said they were pleased with the final draft.

"If the Bush administration were taking the same steps as the Romney administration, the country would be in a much better place," said Jeremy Marin, a conservation organizer for the Sierra Club.

With limited industry in Massachusetts, the state is not a major source of greenhouse gases on the national scale, contributing less than 2 percent of the country's carbon dioxide emissions.

The Romney plan points to predictions by the International Panel for Climate Change, which represents more than 2,000 climate scientists, that temperatures could increase five to nine degrees by the year 2100 if present emission trends continue.

The plan also says New England could face more extreme hot and cold temperatures, as well as floods and droughts that could affect tourism, cause water shortages, trim forests and shrink fisheries.